


half a soul

by master_plo



Category: Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-20
Updated: 2021-02-20
Packaged: 2021-03-17 05:07:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29587680
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/master_plo/pseuds/master_plo
Summary: In a galaxy, where Palpatine never rose to power, where the clone army was never created, and Jedi never became generals, Obi-Wan will never meet his soulmate.
Relationships: CC-2224 | Cody/Obi-Wan Kenobi
Comments: 3
Kudos: 96





	half a soul

**Author's Note:**

> (I love apparently love soft sadness, apologies for that.)

It is a sense, more than anything, a sense of an emptiness in the space around him. 

Sometimes, it is so vivid, a gap left in the space opposite him that Obi-Wan knows, knows in some instinctual part of his brain, that knows what cannot be known, that he, whoever he is, is here. Is here, in the fabric of the force, in some other world. That he is meant to be here, at this exact place, at this moment in time.

But when he turns around, he is alone.

Sometimes, there is a name, almost on his tongue, as familiar as his own. He moves, meeting blaster fire with his lightsaber, giving Ahsoka cover, and he expects somebody else to be there, behind her, standing with his back to them, covering their exit.

Not wielding a lightsaber. And that does not make sense, either. Who would fight by his side if not another Jedi? Who would fight by his side on battlefields stretched far across the galaxy if not another Jedi? Who would walk by his side on war-torn worlds far into the Outer Rim and moons that were no battlefields, his presence the comforting reassurance of trust?

He can feel Ahsoka’s eyes on him in moments like these. Quiet and wondering, as if she can feel his pain through the force.

It does not matter. To a Jedi, a soulmate only matters if it is another Jedi, and even then, it does not come without danger. Few Jedi meet theirs soulmates, and those who do and find them Force-Nulls, are not encouraged to let the bond grow.

There is a power-imbalance between soulmates that is dangerous if only one of them is a Jedi, that too easily grows into attachment. Wanting to protect something precious, something unique to this galaxy is dangerous. Jedi have fallen, have turned to the Dark Side trying to protect their soulmates.

A soulmate that is not a Jedi is a dangerous thing best forgotten.

Qui-Gon had had a soulmate. Had met her early in life, a youngling like him, and they have both been stronger for the bond between them. Obi-Wan has seen them fight together, both on missions and in training, has seen them work together, their bond in the force closer than any bond he can hope to achieve. They seemed one person in two bodies, when they gave themselves to the force and their bond, each thought, each fear shared between the two of them.

Losing Tahl almost destroyed his master.

Bonds like theirs exist, but Obi-Wan knows, from the first instance, that the presence he feels in the force is not that of another Jedi. He should have left it at that, but he has never heard of another Jedi feeling the presence of his soulmate near and not finding him. Some can feel the tug of their bond leading them towards their soulmate, calling for them across the stars. When it calls for him, all he finds is the empty space where somebody else should have stood.

It is this. His lightsaber kicked from his hand, in a training fight, Quintana smiling at him and reaching for it with the force, before he hands it back to him, and when Obi- Wan stretches out his hand for it, the world seems to come to a halt around him.

It is blaster-fire exploding around him, tension straining Ahsoka’s voice as she tries to make light of a dire situation, and knowing, knowing in his soul, that they should not be alone. Somebody is supposed to be there, having their back. Breaking through the door, reinforcements at his back.

Some days, he is not sure he is still a Jedi in that life he could have had. The galaxy seems unfamiliar in the glimpses that he catches of it.

It is Quinlan smirking at a terrible plan and waiting to hear somebody protest who is not there. Protest, with weary disbelief in his eyes, before he follows them into danger.

It is the cadence of an unfamiliar voice in his head, the words indistinguishable, the memory elusive. He would recognise it anywhere, but he cannot recall it.

He almost knows, and it is tearing him apart.

It is worse than loss. It is worse than the millions who go through life without meeting their soulmate. It is worse than never having found him at all, worse than to have had and to have lost, because he feels robbed, robbed in a way that is not the Jedi way, because some part of him knows he has met him, in some other world, some other life.

He has not missed him. Obi-Wan is exactly where he is supposed to be, and… His tongue curls around the name, his lips open for it, but it does not come. Neither a name nor something that is not a name, that is something else. Something that has come before a name. It seems there, both the name and the thing that is not a name, just beyond his grasp, and yet he cannot find it.

Whoever he is, this man with a name that Obi-Wan has never known and that he feels he would recognise if he ever heard it, he is not here. The fabric of the force, the emptiness of space calls out for him, but there is no one filling it,

The absence is not a constant ache. He goes on missions with Ahsoka, her presence growing into a comforting familiarity at his side. Together, they travel on fraters from the Core Worlds to the Outer Rim, defending politicians and civilians from pirates. Ahsoka learns to wield two lightsabers at once, and he is not sure if it is a sign of her impatience, her restless energy, or a means to control it. He enjoys the show of skill, either way. They travel to Cato Neimoidia to pick up a force-sensitive child and are drawn into a war, stay two months longer than they intend to. It’s chaos, they lose the means to contact to the order, have to flee underground, when the conflict turns on them as representatives of the Jedi order, but it is a chance for Ahsoka to grow that he could not have given her in training alone, and he knows, in the warmth of his heart, that he is proud of the Jedi she is becoming.

They spend almost a half a year on Mandalore, negotiating peace between Death Watch and the New Mandalorians, and the months feel quiet even with the constant threat of danger hanging over them. He spends his days arguing with Satine and his evenings sitting with her at the fire-side, almost arguing, but more often than not he finds a smile on her face. On his, too. He begins to wonder if Satine is a bad influence on Ahsoka, and then, just when he has settled into the routine of long missions, the joy to see a new place become home, it is over, and they are recalled to Coruscant. He hopes it will not be as long as the last time until he finds a reason to return.

At another time, they are joined by Qui-Gon on a mission to Kessel, and it feels like the years have been stripped from them. He could be ten years, fifteen years younger, Qui-Gon’s student still. They fall back into a familiar pattern, even with Ahsoka at their side, and, oh, he knows Qui-Gon is a bad influence on her. He does not mind. He only wishes he had somebody less prone to recklessness on his side. Somebody a little more cautious. He can feel his hair go grey every time Ahsoka and Qui-Gon look at him as if they know he will not like what they are planning.

He does not feel it as much, then, the loneliness inside his heart. It will pass, he knows. Everything passes. Qui-Gon has grown up with Tahl, their use of the force entangled in each other, and he lost her. The sadness of that loss, Obi-Wan can no longer find it in his master’s eyes.

Everything passes, and they all return to the force. This man he has never met, he is part of the force, too. It is that what makes his absence bearable, because it is not an absence at all. Obi-Wan can feel him, can feel the promise of him in the force around him.

He can feel it light up, in moments where he feels closer, when he seems almost a bodily presence in the force around him, and he wonders, if this other version of him, this warrior who never goes into battle alone, is happy. Happy in a different way than him. It is not that he is unhappy, but it is difficult to know what he might have had. To feel an echo of it in moments that he knows they were meant to live through together.

It’s on a remote Outer Rim planet called Utapau that he can feel the phantom bond snap. The bond that was never truly there rips apart.

It hurts, it’s a burning ache in his chest – in his soul – and he closes his eyes, lets it flood through him.

He has been walking in the footsteps of a ghost for three years, the force guiding him, and this is where it ends. Here, in a sink-hole city on a peaceful world far in the Outer Rim.

“Master?” Ahsoka is there, her voice soft, but he shakes his head, tries to find his way back to the presence.

The mission that has brought them here is a chaperoning mission more than anything, three Jedi to guard Chandrila’s young senator in her attempt to better relations between the Republic and the Outer Rim. It’s a quiet mission, too quiet for Ahsoka, as much as she tries to control her impatience, but the breath in his mouth tastes of war. Of the quiet rush of battle, of grief and death and the exhaustion of a battle fought too long.

Asajj is with Senator Mothma, shooting him a glance that tells him she can tell he is distracted and she is not impressed to be left alone among politicians, but he allows himself the moment, takes in his surroundings. This circular city built into the rock is where it ends.

He feels like he has been here before, and at the same time, this crater and its inhabitants are as unfamiliar as any planet never visited before.

So… three years, that was how long he would have had, in some other world. Three years. It does not feel long enough, but here, with the loss of the bond ripping apart inside him, he would take a day, an hour.

He held out hope, until now, that one day, he would feel this presence and turn around to find somebody there. Every missed chance has always left like a near miss, a meeting missed by seconds. In his quiet mind, he knows better. He still does not know who he is. Who he would have been, this person who never existed at all.

He wonders if not knowing is easier.

If having had would have been worth the pain of losing. He can feel an echo of it all around him, an echo of a pain that goes beyond it, beyond the loss of half his soul, a loss unmaking the fabric of the galaxy around him, and he is not sure. It’s an echo only, an echo of something terrible, something too vast to grasp, rippling through the force. It feels like the galaxy, folding in upon itself, but when he breathes in, gives himself to the force, listens to it, the force holds no warning, and the darkness is distant. It’s an echo, nothing more. An echo of an event that never comes to pass, and all that he is left with is the ache in his chest.

Loss. It is the way of the force. It creates and it takes, and he lets himself feel the ache of it. The ache of a loss, trickling from his fingers. He can still feel it, the presence dimming around him of a man who never existed, but the knowledge is already slipping away. The awareness of knowing him, knowing him here, in this place, is slipping through his fingers, fades.

Here. He lost him here, that is all he will ever know.

Or, maybe, it was him who dies here. Maybe Obi-Wan is meant to die here, in some other story. Maybe it is his soulmate who stands here, in a different galaxy, feeling the bond rip apart as he breathes his last breath.

Rip, knowing what it meant to have felt it. The force cries of death all around him.

Turning, Obi-Wan scans the perimeter, reaches out with the force, but he does not feel its warning. He will not die here, and whatever danger he feels is not present. It’s a warm summer day and the mission is going well. Not well enough for Utapau join the Republic but even the senator never had hopes that high. It will better relations and it is a start.

He does not regret. But for the emptiness inside him, aching for something lost here, life is good, and the whisper of death in the force, of death sweeping through the galaxy, tells him life is not good in the life he is losing here, in this moment in time, in another world.

And still, as he catches up with Ahsoka, who eyes him with quiet concern, her smile tentative, his heart still wonders. Wonders with whom he could have fought side by side, whom he could have trusted with his life, in a galaxy more cruel than this one.

Wonders, and yearns.


End file.
